What I Learned at Tribe Conference
This past weekend I attended the second annual Tribe Conference. The event was organized by Jeff Goins, who is a pretty interesting guy. I didn't know anything about him prior to the conference, though, I went specifically to see Tim Grahl and Shawn Coyne.
I promised I'd share with you guys what I learned at the conference, and here it is.
It wasn't what I expected — in a good way
I understood the conference to be largely focused on writing and self-publishing, which it was. What I didn't realize was how much the conference would be focused on how-to, non-fiction, and blog writing.
Consequently, there were some parts of the conference that didn't speak to me as much. But there was also a lot of good stuff that I didn't realize I needed to hear.
A lot of what I gathered was strategies for building audiences around ideas, but I think that the same techniques could be applied to building audiences around interests, and that's the key for authors writing fiction.
Draw a line in the sand
One presentation that stood out to me was Jeff Brown's talk about podcasting (again, one of those I didn't realize I was interested in!). He made the following point about building an audience:
You have to have a clear worldview, and you have to articulate it. Make a bold declaration of beliefs, draw a line in the sand and challenge people to cross it.
This forces your audience to split into three groups. The first group will stick around because they agree and love hearing you "preach to the choir." The second group will leave because they disagree, and that's fine because you were going to lose them anyway. The last group is the most interesting, these are people who disagree but want to hear how you defend your views.
This really struck a chord with me. I think we're often hesitant to say that one technique or another is good or bad or right or wrong, or whatever. To actually have an opinion. But Jeff's point wasn't that you need to be a jerk about things, just that your story is a lot more interesting if you put your opinion out there and defend it rather than hiding behind a wall of ambivalence.
Become an Expert by Teaching
Nathan Barry's presentation was another really good one. He made two points:
1) You should put yourself in a small, well-defined box so that people know how to remember you.
In other words, even though you and me and everyone else have many things we do and care about, it's useful to pick a label. This one hit me hard, because I do a million different things and I don't know how to describe myself. The point he made was basically, just pick a thing that you're okay with being your label, and know that the label is just so other people can easily remember you and remember one of your interests. Within that box you have tons of freedom to talk about whatever else you like.
The example he gave was Nerd Fitness, which by the way is just awesome. Basically this guy writes about diet and exercise - but also about Legos and Star Wars and gaming and so on... and he's able to write about whatever he wants within this platform. People remember him as the Nerd Fitness guy, and then they love him because he's interesting. The label is just a marker to help remember.
2) Teach to become an authority
This one was a bigger conversation but he essentially made the point that the people who become "authority figures" do so by teaching. The difference between a professional and an "authority" is essentially, they both get paid to do the same thing, but one person becomes a well-known expert in the broader world, while the other is probably only known inside the industry.
The first person who comes to mind, for me, is Neil deGrasse Tyson. You've heard of him I'm sure, the famous scientist. So if you wanted somebody to teach you something about science, he's one of the people you might think to call, right?
Nathan made a corollary here: you become an expert by teaching what you learn. What that means is you don't get to wait until you're an expert and then start teaching. You teach as you go. Teach for the people who are just one step behind you, while you learn from the people who are one step ahead of you. And don't worry if the people ahead of you aren't impressed -- they're not your audience.
Tell people what you do
Marsha Shandur gave a great presentation on how to present yourself to other people. In it she addressed the question that's often very awkward for aspiring authors and artists of any kind. "What do you say when people ask what you do?"
She pointed out that most people feel obligated to answer with the title on their business card, when actually that's pretty boring. The other person doesn't care what your job title is, they're just trying to make friendly conversation. So give them something more interesting!
Here's what she suggested you tell people when they ask:
Who do you help? What do you do for them? Why do you do it?
This is a simple but powerful way to introduce yourself to people. I tried it out a bit during the conference and found it was a great conversation starter — a big help if you're fairly introverted like me.
Get out and network!
Of course I already knew the point of going to a conference was to network with other people, but the last few hours of the conference really drove this home for me. I sat in a round table with Angus Nelson, Nick DiNardo, Dave Chesson, and Pamela Hodges, and we talked about what we do and shared our experiences and advice. What a great group of folks, I was really lucky to get to meet this great people.
I also ran into Shaunta Grimes, author of What is a plot and teacher of the A Novel Idea writing course. It turns out Shaunta and her students could use a place to post their work and get feedback... gee, do I know a place that might work for that?
Wrap Up
Tribe was a great conference, I'm really glad I attended. If you've got time on your schedule, next year's Tribe Conference is worth attending.
And if you found this post via one of the other Tribe folks, I hope you'll join us over at BetaBooks.
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Cheers!
- Andrew
